Marriage is a long-term commitment and responsibility. That can be stressing enough even for a very loving husband and wife. The routine of marriage can be disastrous for many couples who don’t know how to enjoy it, and therefore can’t avoid sinking into boredom.
However, it’s more than possible to make your partner to fall in love with you again, and to fall in love yourself. Here are a few basic tips:
LIVE YOUR LIFE. Don’t put all your efforts into your partner and family alone. Make time for YOUR hobbies, plans and dreams, they are just as important. Be the exciting and interesting person your partner has once fallen in love with.
INDEPENDENCY. For a marriage to succeed, the partners must be independent. It may sound bad, but I’ll say it nonetheless: Fake it till you make it. Don’t badger your partner with “you don’t love me anymore”s. Yes, I know it’s hard, but imagine how YOU would feel if your partner followed you around, whining. Love him or her you may, but it’s still annoying as hell, and will not make your partner respect you. Respect yourself. A needy, clingy person is not attractive. A free, energetic, independent individual is.
BREAK THE ROUTINE. Want to rediscover your romance and intimacy? Find the time to be together, just the two of you. Kids ( if you have any) are important, but the family won’t work without you and your spouse. And oh, don’t wait for your other half to initiate sex. Surprise your partner. Somehow, it always works.
GIVE WHAT YOU WANT TO GET. Sex isn’t the only thing you can initiate instead of complaining about not having it. Give your partner both the thrill and the warmth that you wish to get from him or her yourself. Trust me, you’ll be rewarded.
ASK FOR HELP. Counseling may prove not as scary as it might sound. As for those who prefer their help printed, you will find plenty of material on the web. The relationship expert Dr. Lee H. Baucom offers some sound advice, and it might be a good place to start.
16 Responses to How to Fall Back in Love
Timothy Martin 06/06/2011
LIVE YOUR LIFE. that’s the most important phrase in this article! you only understand it after you experience a relationship with someone who has nothing to do except kissing all day. And the problem is, you never know it until you actually live with this person…
Madison Green 08/06/2011
From what I know, it’s usually the women who are clingy. I guess that’s the way they bring us up…sad. But there’s NOTHING worse than a clingy man, and I’ve seen that, that’s totally pathetic..
Rachel 19/11/2011
I came across your website a few days ago and have found your words to be comforting and inspiring. I have a question/advice I would love to hear back from you on, in how to start the process of reconnecting with your partner and get that love back? My husband and I have been married 8 years but recently I find myself in the place of I love him, but don’t feel in love with him, there’s a void. We have always been the perfect couple everyone has envied that communicate well, are open, honest & committed. My husbands job keeps him out of town a lot lately and as such I find we have lost all closeness, intimacy and even our sex life. I suppose just busy everyday life has been a contributing factor in the sense we are sometimes in that rat race rut of work, eat, sleep, repeat. For a couple that has never wavered it is devastating to lay next to my husband and be brought to tears & severe anxiety no longer feeling connected, intimate and loving. Almost like great room mates, but fallen out of love. We have gently talked about the issue and he simply adores me and worships the ground I walk on and he seems to feel things are fine. How do I restore the love, feeling in love, restore the loss of intimacy and move past the terrifying anxiety that my marriage is over. I have spent many a sleepless night and would love your advice and expertise!
marriage 25/11/2011
Dear Rachel,
I’m glad you found some comfort in my ideas, and I hope my answer will help. The process you are describing happens to many couples. It is also very common that the woman feels bad about the situation while her husband is quite happy with it. Let’s try to analyze the situation.
First of all, take a deep breath. You feel that you have lost all intimacy, but it seems that you can still talk about it and express your feelings, while your husband is ready to listen. This is good. This means that you still have a good, strong connection and you can start working from there.
You’ve been together for 8 years, and it is natural that your feelings and sex life undergo certain changes. You love him, but your heart doesn’t skip a beat every time you see him. You (and him) need to put more efforts to get aroused. Those changes are hard to accept, we want to stay in love forever, right?
Natural it is, but it doesn’t mean it’s ok to become completely indifferent to your husband and to give up on your sex life. We want to do something about it.
First, I must say that I think you still love your husband. The doubts you experience are feeding on your anxiety. Both of you should definitely work on your relationship, but the most important thing is a change in perception. First, try to understand that the fact that your feelings are “slowing down” is not a catastrophe. It definitely doesn’t mean that your marriage is over. But being the “perfect couple everyone has envied” has its price. You may not know it, but that way people see you affects how you see yourself, otherwise you wouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s a tough thing to explain, but I think that it’s partly the reason why you find it hard to accept the changes – how can it be, that us, the most perfect couple there is, is suddenly falling apart . I must add that I wasn’t sure I should write that, not being sure you would understand me correctly. In other words, even the most perfect couple has its ups and downs. Let me tell you about the perfect couple I know.
In one of my articles, I think I mentioned a couple I know, who are 30 years together. They are good friends of mine, and the man talks freely about his sex life, proudly saying that he and his wife “found the secret”:) He says that a couple needs to give each other space. He also says that after years of marriage, to find the lost spontaneity, you have to put some efforts in your sex life first. And not only in your sex life, but in other aspects in your relationship as well. I’ll try to organize my advice:
I understand that your husband’s work keeps him away. See if you can talk to him about it. As a partner of a workaholic, I know it can be tough, but try. See how it goes.
Be the first to suggest sex. You may not feel like it, but do it. You don’t have to feel aroused right away. Don’t probe yourself with “why don’t I feel like I have before/why can’t I come” questions. If it didn’t go well this time, it will the next time. But you have to do it so it will.
you may have noticed I’m not offering you and marriage guides,magic formulas or romantic weekends (nothing bad in good healthy romantic weekend of course). I can give you limited advice, since I never saw the two of you interact, and it is possible that I’m missing important details. But the most important piece of advice I can give you is this: You’re feeling confused at the moment, you’re not sure if you love your husband and are afraid that your marriage is over. Stop torturing yourself. with these questions. Take a deep breath. Calm down. You have no idea how your emotional state affects your feelings. I’ll say it again: Your doubts are feeding on your anxiety. You will understand what you really feel eventually, you don’t have to decide whether you love your husband right now. Work on your sex life, try to spend more time together, and understand that it is a gradual process. Your marriage is not over until you want it to be over.
Feel free to write again if you have any more questions.
Best Regards,
Renata
Lisa 24/04/2012
I have been married for 21 years (together 26, met him when i was 19). i love him dearly like a friend, roommate, brother and don’t feel “in love”. I have only been with one other man, sexually, prior to our marriage. i had a 10 day affair 1 1/2 years ago with a man who lives out of the country, and fell deeply in love with this man and continued to feel this way until just recently. He and I shared deep intimate emails the first 2 months that slowly faded away with time, but i have never shared that intimacy with anyone, not even my husband as he is not the greatest communicator. This affair identified to me the “connection” and “intimacy” i have been missing in my marriage and I am addicted to it like a drug and want it so desperately with my husband. We have been separated on and off this past 1 1/2 years due to his anger and acting severely depressed, needy, desperate, clingy. He has no friends, few hobbies, he works as a fireman but helps me in my workplace and gives me little space. He doesn’t understand why i need space. I don’t know how to work on my marriage with a man who has become so unattractive to me. i am constantly feeling sorry for him and give into seeing him. We have both been to multiple counseling sessions, read books, etc… I want him to work on what makes him feel good about himself and not make me his center. I feel like he is sabotaging the chance we have by his desperate repulsive behavior and i need any advice you can give me.
marriage 27/04/2012
Dear Lisa,
You mentioned that your husband became unattractive to you, and that you’re not in love anymore. I think the question here is not whether the two of you CAN work on your marriage, because it seems that none of you is interested in a separation in this stage, but whether you really want this. Ask yourself this: will you feel differently towards your husband if he changes his behavior patterns? Even if he does, he’lll hardly become “the greatest communicator” over night, if ever. Besides, feelings change over time, and no doubt the two of you have spent a long period of time together. It might be difficult to recognize the difference between loving but “not being in love”, and a situation where the feeling is really gone, especially since you’ve just had an emotional affair that showed you that things may be different. I wouldn’t take that affair as an indicator, however, since it’s easy to maintain an intimate connection over the web over a short period of time, but it’s much harder to maintain such intimacy over 20 years of marriage. Where are you standing right now? You’re ready to “work” on your marriage, but what is the reason for it? Is it love, or commitment? Do you really want this? If you do, you should prepare yourself to the possibility that your husband might need professional help (you mentioned depression and clingy behavior), not necessarily marriage counseling for both of you, but for him alone too, as well as all the support you are ready to give.
Best Regards,
Renata
karen 15/06/2012
I remember myself in the first year after I gave birth to our first daughter… When my husband tried to convince me to go out I simply refused, because I couldn’t bear the thought that he’ll start crying and I won’t be there to calm him down. Now I know I should have been more attentive to my husband’s needs, and luckily, our marriage survived, but many women take it too far , even when the kids grow, feeling that they have to take them with them if they go out, not only to restaurants and malls but also to vacations..
ellen 15/06/2012
I believe people need lots of courage to get married…with all the statistics. but when it works, it’s the best thing ever – when you know you have SOMEBODY back at home, who’ll always be there for you. Some only understand it when they’re old, and then it’s too late.
shannon 15/06/2012
I read an article a few days ago, it was about marriage and sex in Japan.. It said that married couples there rarely even have sex, even young couples.. especially after having their first kid. It really surprised me, you know, after growing up on all those geisha stories..
Andrea 06/11/2012
From my experience, it really helped when my husband was sent on a month-long business trip to China. When he was back, it was like we had a second honeymoon, the way he looked at me, they way he talked,,,everything:))
Shaheen 01/12/2012
I think my wife has no love for me anymore, truly. But I will try do all of that.
Noya 01/12/2012
People don’t understand anything! I think that my relationship with my husband only gets better and better. Yes, things change, but I’m still in love with him, really in love, not only “love him”, and I believe he feels the same. it’s been 5 years, and I know it will keep getting better!!!:)
Anat Weiss 25/12/2012
That’s something that only women can understand, I believe. With men – i’s either they love the woman all their life or lose it somewhere along the way and are totally unable to understand the concept of working on a relationship and bringing back the love/
Cate 22/01/2013
so true. I love my man more and more every year, and we’ve been together for 8 years now, I think it’s quite a lot.:)
lemonpie 26/03/2013
That independency part is so important and many are just nt aware of it. Especially women, but I’ve seen many men too, who’re so dependant on their wife, and I don’t mean economically, of course.
V-13 15/04/2013
In your opinion, what things make a marriage last ?